The Oligarchs
The Oligarchs: Wealth and Power in the New Russia is a 2001 non-fiction book written by Pulitzer Prize-winning author and Washington Post contributing editor David E. Hoffman.
The book chronicles events of the transitional period in Russia, from the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, and the subsequent privatization in Russia, to the 1996 presidential election, the 1998 Russian financial crisis, and Vladimir Putin's rise to power in the late 1990s.
Hoffman's account focuses on the rise of the Russian oligarchs, a group of businessmen who acquired great wealth and became very influential in Russian politics during the Boris Yeltsin presidency, and several state officials who were close to them. The book examines in detail the roles of six individuals:
- Boris Berezovsky
- Mikhail Khodorkovsky
- Vladimir Gusinsky
- Alexander Smolensky
- Yury Luzhkov
- Anatoly Chubais
The book has been translated into several languages, including Russian, Spanish, Hebrew, Chinese and Croatian.